Pa is really glad those darn elections are over, not because he doesn’t like politics, but because all that math gives him a headache bigger than the president’s ego. He once wrote a news story about a new police car engine “with 100,000 horsepower,” and then a reader called to ridicule that mistake and said the space shuttle didn’t have that kind of horsepower, which really wasn’t true, either, but it was still enough to make Pa always double-check his zeros. Now if he could just get the state of Florida to do the same thing. Seriously, Pa hasn’t been to Florida in 40 years, or maybe it was only 20 years because he can’t count, but he’s wondering if a state can be evicted from the Union for bad election math. When it comes to counting ballots, it’s the Sunshine Acid State. Then again, Pa’s own Ventura County has him all confused, too. Last week, election officials here said they still had 88,176 votes to count. Then this week, after counting thousands of those ballots, they said they had 97,327 votes to count. Pa’s wondering if Jesus was in Ventura last week doing the loaves and fishes thing in the elections office.

To potheads

Speaking of the STEM disciplines, a chain of Southern California marijuana stores is offering you folks a Black Friday special. MedMen sent out a news release predicting its sale would have “experienced users and novices alike hitting the registers” — another reason for Pa to stay off the roads and away from storefronts that day. MedMen calls itself “The Apple Store of Weed,” but Pa’s not sure they thought that one through. Like if you have to return some dope, the earliest appointment you can get is in 2019 and it likely won’t be under warranty. Plus, its “Early Bird Special” next Friday — a whopping 40 percent off — runs from 8 to 10 a.m. The only joint lover up that early is Pa’s orthopedist. MedMen does, however, have a good suggestion for Pa’s Christmas: marijuana “edibles to serve in place of dessert at the holiday table.” With math-poor Pa divvying up those portions, his dinner guests will be flying on that space shuttle to Florida in no time.

To word lovers

If Pa’s Christmas dinner leaves you speechless for a description, just remember Oxford Dictionaries’ international word of the year — “toxic.” Yes, the Oxford folks this week announced that the title of a 2003 Britney Spears song best reflects “the ethos, mood or preoccupations” of 2018 (maybe their year math is as bad as Pa’s). An Oxford official told the New York Times it made the “toxic” choice because “so many different things are tied together by the word.” Or in Pa’s case, so many words are tied together that it’s toxic. In any case, Pa likes some of the runner-up words better, such as “techlash.” The Times said “it’s the kind of word that … doesn’t really exist in common usage,” but after Pa serves those edibles Dec. 25, his guests could well be saying, “Ma, please pass the salt and techlash.”

To dieters

Your math must be as bad as Pa’s, if an Ask the Doctors column in The Star this week is any indication. One reader wrote in to ask if drinking 2 pounds of Tang a month might be unhealthy. If Pa was one of the docs, he would respond, Yeah, ya think? And tell his old joke about why elephants aren’t in the space program — because they don’t like Tang. Then there was the reader who bragged about losing 5 pounds, writing “I eliminated alcohol, beef, pasta, potatoes, wheat and sugar from my diet, and continued to eat as much as I wanted of everything else.” Pa wants to know — what else is there? Pass the techlash, please.

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